Request Spell Function Change: Call Lightning

[Scylon]

Just something I am posting up from the dev chat in discord.

The spell in question is decent enough on paper. Drops a lightning bolt on everything hostile to you. Unfortunately it also targets and destroys all loot and placeables. This makes the spell some what useless, where it other wise would be a fantastic choice.

Can we please make this spell no longer target loot and peoples furniture as I'm certain many people are unhappy their decorations are getting melted.

[Irongron]

I know this isn't a suggestion board, but I asked this player specifically to post this.

It was recently a subject in staff chat so I'm hopeful something can be done here (though there may be an issue I'm not aware of).

[MRFTW]

Can we also make sure that classes with call lightning still have some kind of access to a terrain destruction spell, though?

Mages can burning hands or fireball to clear those, unless I've not noticed, that's the only terrain destroyer in the druid spellbook, for example.

[chris a gogo]

I use this spell all the time with my druid i even craft wands of it just so i can cast it more please don't stop me blowing up everything around him.

[Dreams]

Earthquake is a great terrain destroyer. We should enable that again!

[Aren]

I use this spell all the time with my druid i even craft wands of it just so i can cast it more please don't stop me blowing up everything around him.

The spell destroys corpses / loot. It makes it a button you don’t want to press, unless it’s as initiation.

[Scylon]

I use this spell all the time with my druid i even craft wands of it just so i can cast it more please don't stop me blowing up everything around him.

The spell destroys corpses / loot. It makes it a button you don’t want to press, unless it’s as initiation.

This is the primary issue. When out and about fighting mobs, i don't want to be clearing all the loot all the time.

[Paint]

I would appreciate this personally. Call Lightning would have a lot more use if it was tooled differently. And on several characters I have accidentally destroyed fixtures I wasn't even aware of because in the middle of a fight, I've used call lightning, only to find ALTAR TO THE LOYAL FURY or COZY TENT being smashed off to the side.

Edit: Your opinions on random fixtures being destroyed aside, I really just don't want to accidentally trip some sort of griefing script because my character wants to use call lightning at low levels.

[chris a gogo]

Post by Aren » 16 Jul 2022 18:33

chris a gogo wrote: ↑15 Jul 2022 12:03
I use this spell all the time with my druid i even craft wands of it just so i can cast it more please don't stop me blowing up everything around him.
The spell destroys corpses / loot. It makes it a button you don’t want to press, unless it’s as initiation.

I'm presuming here that your response was meant for myself as you quoted me then went on to tell me how it worked and what I wanted it to do.
But you are wrong I want it to destroy things as stated in my post and I'm also fully aware of how it works.

[cornelius_4]

I wonder if this could be made a player choice, similar to how I read recently that the player can toggle whether some items stack or not.

An unfortunate, albeit rate, concequence of no longer targeting corpses and such is that some spells no longer work for damaging phylacteries. Occasionally, I'd use a wall of fire to help burn those down, but that can't be done anymore. If you could switch corpse targeting on and off in a menu, that would be better in all cases.

[Aren]

Post by Aren » 16 Jul 2022 18:33

chris a gogo wrote: ↑15 Jul 2022 12:03
I use this spell all the time with my druid i even craft wands of it just so i can cast it more please don't stop me blowing up everything around him.
The spell destroys corpses / loot. It makes it a button you don’t want to press, unless it’s as initiation.

I'm presuming here that your response was meant for myself as you quoted me then went on to tell me how it worked and what I wanted it to do.
But you are wrong I want it to destroy things as stated in my post and I'm also fully aware of how it works.

I was providing a counter argument to your post, by quoting you, when you wrote that you want the spell to destroy fixtures and corpses. I provide the counter argument, because players will use it in groups all the time, destroying more than 75% of all loot on corpses.

[MRFTW]

I was providing a counter argument to your post, by quoting you, when you wrote that you want the spell to destroy fixtures and corpses. I provide the counter argument, because players will use it in groups all the time, destroying more than 75% of all loot on corpses.

Then speak to those players IC, or don't group with them? Given that we're talking about a few hundred gold per group of mobs, players using call lightning aren't destroying the economy.

There aren't enough "Screw this and everything within 10 meters of it" spells. If one of my party members dies, and my character loses their temper and really lets rip, I absolutely want corpses, fixtures, phylacteries, terrain and anything else in the area of effect to be obliterated. It's kind of sad that I can throw out meteor swarms, storms of vengeance and fire storms all day but have to resort to a 3rd level spell if I actually want to destroy something.

The couple of times where I've RPed this, nobody batted an eyelid until I cast call lightning (deliberately) to destroy the corpses. As soon as I did, people started (IC) yelling for me to stop, and for my character to calm down, which is exactly the response I was trying for. What is very telling is that the response kicked in when players saw loot being destroyed, not when characters saw an overwhelming use of destructive magic from a peaceful, quiet gnome.

It's a really good way of showing your surviving party members, any spying DMs and the module in general that your character is usually very restrained. Destruction of loot, fixtures and terrain should be the standard for AoE spells. To do otherwise removes the potential for some really powerful character moments, albeit at the cost of some loot.

[DeepWebAssassin]

It kind of seems like this is more of a question on if it CAN be changed and not if it should be, but for the sake of the discussion: I think I'm of the opinion that destroying corpses and fixtures should always be a conscious action that you decided to take, and not something that accidently happened while you were trying to kill a goblin.

The biggest offender for me has been trying to play a hemomancer that sails. Call Lightning is one of the only spells you have early on that won't hurt your party members and is also an AoE, but when you get boarded and cast it you delete every fixture on the deck of the ship (including the barrel people keep all the loot in) and look like a total idiot who did it on purpose because none of your other spells are blowing up the ship.

It just seems like if you're going to do damage to things that requires effort and resources to repair, or you're going to force someone to respawn, it should be a choice you made as a player because it makes for a better story. Not an accident or punishment for not knowing this spell was different than all the other AoEs you've been casting.

[MRFTW]

I think I'm of the opinion that destroying corpses and fixtures should always be a conscious action that you decided to take, and not something that accidently happened while you were trying to kill a goblin.

Yes, I agree. My point is that the conscious action you decided to take was slotting / learning call lightning, and not electric loop, or fireball, or whatever other AoEs your class gets.

The biggest offender for me has been trying to play a hemomancer that sails. Call Lightning is one of the only spells you have early on that won't hurt your party members and is also an AoE,

It makes sense that d6/CL 3rd level spell that doesn't hurt allies has a drawback. If it didnt hurt allies, didn't destroy loot/corpses and still did the same damage, it'd just be fireball 2.0 and nobody would use anything else.

[DeepWebAssassin]

Yes, I agree. My point is that the conscious action you decided to take was slotting / learning call lightning, and not electric loop, or fireball, or whatever other AoEs your class gets.

Yeah except most other AoEs don't delete corpses and fixtures. Also the spell has no warning in the description so that's probably not what people had in mind when they selected the spell. The only way to know is to be told ooc or learn through trial and error. Compare that to casting an Ice Dagger targeted directly onto a fixture and you can see how the thought process would differ in taking those two actions.

It makes sense that d6/CL 3rd level spell that doesn't hurt allies has a drawback. If it didn't hurt allies, didn't destroy loot/corpses and still did the same damage, it'd just be fireball 2.0 and nobody would use anything else.

It already does 5d6 less damage because the scaling caps out at level 10 instead of 15 (unless specifically outdoors and in a storm, in which call lighting beats fireball by 10 damage if both are maximized). It also has a Large radius compared to fireball's Huge radius. But these things don't really matter except to invokers because I don't think any other caster gets both spells anyways -- so it's not going to replace fireball because it literally can't for most classes.

Anyways I don't think we are purposefully balancing spells with things like "it makes you have to repair your fixtures lol" as an intended drawback. If it is somehow too powerful, it should have damage, range, or radius adjusted rather than deleting gold off the ground and making another person (who probably isn't the caster) have to repair their stuff.

The phylactory thing is a good point though. I kind of wonder if it would be possible to have the spell act differently if cast on the ground vs on a fixture? Like if it was cast on the ground or an enemy, it will only hit hostile targets. And if cast directly on a fixture it will target terrain and fixtures.

[MRFTW]

Yes, I agree. My point is that the conscious action you decided to take was slotting / learning call lightning, and not electric loop, or fireball, or whatever other AoEs your class gets.

Yeah except most other AoEs don't delete corpses and fixtures. Also the spell has no warning in the description so that's probably not what people had in mind when they selected the spell. The only way to know is to be told ooc or learn through trial and error. Compare that to casting an Ice Dagger targeted directly onto a fixture and you can see how the thought process would differ in taking those two actions.

I'll agree that call lightning probably should have its unique effects in the spell text.

It makes sense that d6/CL 3rd level spell that doesn't hurt allies has a drawback. If it didn't hurt allies, didn't destroy loot/corpses and still did the same damage, it'd just be fireball 2.0 and nobody would use anything else.

It already does 5d6 less damage because the scaling caps out at level 10 instead of 15 (unless specifically outdoors and in a storm, in which call lighting beats fireball by 10 damage if both are maximized). It also has a Large radius compared to fireball's Huge radius. But these things don't really matter except to invokers because I don't think any other caster gets both spells anyways -- so it's not going to replace fireball because it literally can't for most classes.

If you're playing an invoker, you can swap to scintillating sphere. As you've said, the damage is comparable. Druids and shamans have AoE options that don't destroy things, too.

Anyways I don't think we are purposefully balancing spells with things like "it makes you have to repair your fixtures lol" as an intended drawback.

Why not? I think casters should have to think about where they're pointing their big AoE spells. 99% of the time they don't have to, but in the case of call lightning they do.

[Fava Beans]

Just chiming in to say that giving some spells back the ability to break placables would be awesome, there are times where there are intentional shortcuts in dungeons if you break placables, that can only be broken by like 3 spells, since they cant be targeted directly. chain lightning will target these object, and not corpses, perhapse something similar can be done with call lightning, or perhaps let fire/icewalls dmg fixtures again. its terribly unfortunate when i run a dungeon like grimlocks and have to facetank the traps because i cant break a wooden barricade with any spell other than chain lightning